Concentration of liquid food material



May 10, 1938. L. WICKENDEN CONCENTRATION OF LIQUID FOOD MATERIAL Filed.Jan. 11, 19 34 2 Sheets-Sheet l 9 KM AT ORNE'YJ May 10, 1938 1.. WICKENDEN 2,116,920"

CONCENTRATION OF LIQUID FOOD MA TERIAL Fi l,ed Jan. 11, 1934 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 TORNEYS Patented May 10,1938 2,116,920

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CONCENTRATION or LIQUID FOOD MATERIAL Leonard Wickenden, Manhassct, N. Y., assignor to Beau May Process Corporation, New York, ,N. Y., a corporation of New York Application January 11, 1934, Serial No. 706,203

2 Claims. (01. 99-105) v This invention provides a method for the con- Any suitable material can be used for the semicentration of aqueous solution or suspensions by permeable membrane, such as parchment paper n of sm sis, or cellophane. This latter material has been The process is adapted more particularly to I found to be particularly advantageous in the the concentration of liquid food materials contreatment of fruit juices, since. it is less permeable 5 taining a high percentage of water, such as fruit to the flavoring constituents of the juices. juices, milk, extract of coffee, et cetera. The process will be explained in detail as ap- A primary object of the invention is to concenplied to the concentration of, orange juice to form trate such liquids without altering their original an intensifiedor concentrated juice. flavor, Fresh orange juice is placed on one side of a Methods of concentration now commonly used membrane, preferably cellophane, and a syrup of such as boiling, have very detrimental efiects on approximately 80 Brix, containing 50% invert the volatile constituents which give food products more or less, is placed on the other side of the their distinctive flavors, and the present invenmembrane. Water passes from the juice into the tion provides for concentration without the necessyrup and the dilute syrup thus formed rises to sity of any detrimental change of temperature. the top and can be skimmed off, and reconcen- Some methods of concentration have been trated in a vacuum still. From time to time this proposed that are based on evaporation without reconcentrated syrup can be added to the diluted substantial increase of temperature but in these syrup, thereby maintaining the Brix of the syrup methods there is a change of flavor caused either at approximately 75 Brix. In this way the steady by bubbles which rise through the liquid. or by extraction of the'water from the juice raises the oxidation through contact with the air. Both of Brix from the original concentration of about 13 these detrimental effects are avoided by the Brix to any desired point, limited only by the fact method of this invention. that the,Brix of the syrup must always'be slightly The process can be carried out either as a higher than the Brix of the juice. If it is desired continuous process or as a batch processdependto carry the concentration of the juice to 75 ing upon the economics of any particular situa- Brix without the addition of sugar, it is necessary ti n. towards the end of the operation to remove While preferred forms of the invention have all the diluted syrup and to replace it with syrup been disclosed herein for purposes of illustration, of 80 Brix or higher. Since, however, the presit should be understood that various changes can ence of a small quantity of sugar in the concen-' be made without departing from the spirit of the trated orange juice is, for most purposes, entirely invention. unobjectionable, I may carry on the operation In the drawings until the Brix of the juice is about 68 and then Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a unit adapted raise it to 75 by melting in it the desired quantity for carrying out the process as a continuous of granulated sugar. process. I have found that there is a tendency for the Fig. 2 is a section on line 2--2 of Fig. 1. citric acid in the juice to pass through the mem- Fig. 3 is a perspective view of one apparatus brane into the sugar syrup. In order to prevent. for carrying out the invention as a batch process. this I add to the sugar syrup a sufficient quantity 40 Fig. 4 is a diagrammatic view illustrating anof citric acid so as to maintain the concentration other arrangement for a batch process. of acid on each side of the membrane at approxi- Fig. 5 is a diagrammatic view illustrating a demately the same degree. It is obvious that an tail of Fig. 4. alternative to this would be to add a suflicient Fig. 6 illustrates another apparatus for carryquantity of citric acid to the finished juice in ing out a batch process. order to restore its original acidity. I The process depends upon the principles of In the example quoted above I started with the osmosis and comprises broadly placing the liquid fresh juice and suggested the possibility of adding to be concentrated on one side of a semi-persugar at the end of the operation in orderto meable membrane, while on the other side of the raise the Brix. An alternate procedure is to add membrane is placed a concentrated substance more or less sugar tothe juice before placingit such as dry sugar, a concentrated sugar syrup, in the dialyzer. This may be of some advantage, a solution of calcium chloride, or any suitable especially in cases where a larger percentage of concentrated material that will set up osmotic sugar in the finished product is not objectionable. action. By adding suflicient sugar to the juice to raise'the Brix to about 40, the keeping qualities of the juice are improved during the concentrating process, and there is less danger of the flower deteriorating, especially when the process must be carried out in artificially heated rooms where the temperature reaches 70 or over.

The process can also be applied in the produc- 1 Such fruits are 1 advantage thatthe repeated boiling of the fruit.

almost completely destroys its flavor. By our 'method of dialysis the entire process of saturation could be carried out at room temperature and the original flavor of the fruit thus preserved. The fruit, either in its own juice; or in a thin syrup, is placed in the dialyzer anda heavy syrup is placed on the other side of the diaphragm. Water passes from the juice or thin syrup so that its concentration slowly rises. As this occurs, the concentration of syrup in the fruit also rises and this concentration can be carried to any desired point by means of raising the Brix of the syrup on the other side of the diaphragm. As in all other cases, the diluted syrup formed by the absorption of water can be reconcentrated by boiling under vacuum.

Such liquids as milk and coffee extract are concentrated by means exactly similar to those al ready described.

Using this process an extract of coffee was concentrated from 15% solids to 75% solids at room temperature without difliculty and with the production of a concentrate having an excellent flavor.

Starting with milk having approximately 13% solids, this process has been used to remove water until the solids have risen to approximately 70%,

representing about a 7 to 1 concentration by volume. The milk concentrate thus formed has no cooked flavor and its color is unchanged, ex-

cept that the natural color is intensified .by the concentration.

The process can also be advantageously used for the concentration of syrups containing invert sugar. Due to the presence of levulose it is difficult to concentrate such syrups without slight caramelization occurring, with a consequent darkening of co.or. By the use of this process a w'ater-white invert syrup can be produced.

In thus concentrating a sugar syrup it is possible to use as a concentrating medium melted raw sugar, which contains about 72% solids. This raw syrup must be diluted to about 50% solids before it is put through the refining process. If therefore the purified syrup having a Brix of about 50 is placed on one side of a membrane and the raw syrup is placed on the other side,

- water will pass from the light, purified syrup to the heavy, raw syrup. This serves the double purpose of concentrating the refined syrup and of diluting the incoming raw syrup.

It will be seen that the great advantage of this method of concentrating is that the concentration occurs at room temperature or at still lower temperatures. It is, for instance, possible to concentrate such thin juices as orange juice, or such readily spoilable liquids as milk, at temperatures encountered in cold storage. At 511Gb ow temperatures the passage of water from liquid tosyrup is somewhat slower, but it is none the less a practicable procedure. The removal of water from thesystem by evaporation under-vacuum takes place entirely apart from the fruit juice or other liquid being concentrated. Thus, in the case of milk, the evaporation of the water takes place after it has been extracted from the milk, so that the cooked flavor which is commonly found in evaporated and condensed milk is entirely absent from the product prepared by our process.

In all the examples quoted above I have employed sugar or sugar syrup for the absorbing medium. It is, however, obvious that any concentrated solution can be used. For instance, I have in some experiments used calcium chloride on one side of the diaphragm in place of the sugar syrup. Under these conditions the passage of water through the diaphragm is very rapid. It has, however, the disadvantage that any slight leakage of calcium chloride in the opposite direction contaminates the product undergoing concentration. It is for this,reason that I prefer to use sugar or sugar syrups, but I recognize that the use of other highly soluble solids is possible under certain circumstances. In practice it has been found that an activated vegetable carbon will absorb water through a semi-permeable membrane, and it is possible that other solid materials may operate in the same manner. For this reason it is to be understood that where the term substance or equivalent is used in the claims, this term is intended to cover solid as well as liquid soluble material.

The process can be carried out in equipment designed for either continuous or batch operation, as in the several embodiments illustrated herein.

Referring more particularly to Figs. 1 and 2, which illustrate a single cell for a continuous concentration process, the confronting faces of the plates l0 and H are formed with similar sinuous grooves l2 which are so arranged as to register with each other when the plates are assembled as in Figs. 1. A semi-permeable diaphragm of any preferred material is clamped be tween the plates as shown at 13 in Fig. 1. The material to be concentrated, for example, fresh fruit juice, flows in at the inlet 14 at the upper side of plate In and after being concentrated by passing through channel l2 in contact with the semi-permeable diaphragm, it emerges from outlet 15 at the bottom of plate In in a more concentrated condition.

The syrup solution flows in the opposite direction through plate ll entering as a heavy syrup by inlet l6 and coming out as a more diluted syrup by outlet 11.

The plates Ill and II may be supported on a filter press framework and pressed together in the usual manner. Any convenient number of plates can be used.

The apparatus illustrated in Fig. 3 is designed for a batch operation and includes anumber of frames l8 covered with membrane material I9. Each frame forms a container, and a number of these containers are placed side by side in tank 20. The heavy syrup can be placed .within the containers i8 and the fruit juice may be permitted to circulate through the tank or the juice may be placed in the container and the heavy syrup be allowed to circulate around them in the tank. In either case the diluted syrup which rises to the top can be drawn ofi, either continuously or periodically and reconcentrated by boiling under vacuum after which it' is reintroduced into the system.

In the treatment of some materials which contain a large amount 01' suspended matter, such as milk, where there is a constant tendency for the batch to separate, it is advantageous to use some form of agitation, so that the liquid undergoing concentration is kept continually moving over the face of the diaphragm. Such action can be conveniently carried out in the apparatus illustrated diagrammatically in Fig. 4, in which the frames 18 are carried by arms 2| which radiate from a revolving shaft. The milk is placed in the tank 22 and the concentrated material such as the heavy syrup is placed in the containers it. The heavy syrup can be changed continuously by providing the radial arms 2| with a heavy syrup inlet 23 and a light syrup outlet II as shown in Fig. 5. Stationary brushes or scrapers 25 may be provided to wipe the surfaces oi. the diaphragm.

Another form of batch equipment is illustrated in Fig. 6 where the inner tray 21 is provided with a diaphragm bottom 28. This inner. tray contains the heavy syrup. and the outer tray 26 con tains the fruit juice. As the volume of fruit juice shrinks, the upper tray is lowered to keep the diaphragm in contact with the juice. This method lends itself particularly ior preparing whole or sliced fruits.

I claim:

1. The process of concentrating juices of citric acid fruits which comprises, placing the fresh fruit juice in contact with one side of a semipermeable membrane, and placing in contact with the other side of the membrane sugar in a high concentrationto which has been added an amount of citric acid suflicient to bring the concentration oi acid on each side of the membrane to approximately the same degree, whereby water passes from the fruit juice to the opposite side of the membrane by osmotic action and the concentration ofthe fruit juice is raised.

2. The process of concentrating juices of citric acid fruits which comprises, expressing the juice from the fruit, placing the freshly expressed Juice in contact with one side of a cellophane diaphragm and placing in contact with the other side of the diaphragm a concentrated sugar solution to which has been added an amount of citric acid sufficient to bring the concentration 0! acid on each side of the membrane to approximately the same degree, whereby water passes from the fruit juice to the opposite side of the membrane by osmotic action and the concentration of the fruit juice is raised.

LEONARD WICKENDEN. 

